Caden's 4th birthday is coming up and this will be his 2nd party. Even though I love entertaining, I'm strangely not a big believer in kids' parties and I usually opt to buy an annual theme park pass instead. But Caden is finally at the age where he understands that a birthday is a special day and ever since Christmas ended, he's been asking how much longer he has until his birthday. So I decided to let loose and invite all of our family and a lot of our friends to a Crocodile & Pirate pool party!I rented out a local aquatics center so I won't have to worry about cleaning up my house and all that jazz. Then I pinned away for all of my decoration inspiration - and promptly started collecting things as I saw them on sale. Next on the list was invitations. Yeahhhhhh, that checkbox wasn't marked off on time! I have been telling myself since March that I need to design and print his invites... here it is, less than three weeks out from his party and I finally mailed them.I was told by a friend to use Catprint because they have high quality printing and low prices. My friend also warned that I should order a test print just to be sure it was exactly how I wanted it before printing the whole batch... uhhh, I failed on that part. Since I had waited so long, I just went ahead and ordered the whole shebang so I could get them in the mail ASAP. Aaaaand our crocodile is a little less apparent than I intended. Like totally hidden. Blending into his surroundings just like a real crocodile would. Below is the original template I created on Picmonkey and then the actual invite as it appears in real life. Kinda bummed but what's a mom to do?! I definitely won't admit my mistake in front of Nick because he told me to go with a white crocodile. But I insisted on the contrasting greens. And had I listened to him, we would have avoided the whole problem. Live and learn, I suppose!I will be trying Catprint again in the future because I like their quality (despite the issue with contrast) and it's hard to beat a 2-sided color invite at less than $1 a pop! I'll just be sure to give myself ample ordering time on the next round so I can get a sample first.

Electronic Copy

Real Life Copy

Have you ever had a DIY craft backfire? Leave me a comment below... As you can see, you aren't alone! :)

You might also like:

Leave a Reply.

Hi, I'm Vanessa! Love This Crazy Life is about seeing the beauty in a fast-paced environment. I share daily inspirations, DIY projects, and all things family. I believe that every stage of life is worth loving, no matter how crazy it can seem.